Windows 10: Can't access drives in external USB 3 enclosures

There's a warning on the product page but I don't think it applies to me:

"Note: WD Green and WD Red hard drives have a feature called Intellipark. This feature makes the drives automatically park themselves after being idle for 8 seconds. There is a small chance that certain drives may appear offline to the USB host of the MB174U3S-4SB and can cause the USB host to refresh. This could cause the remaining drive(s) to power cycle, interrupting any data transfer and potentially causing data corruption on the drives. We recommend WD Green and WD Red drive users to disable the Intellipark feature to prevent this issue."

I don't have any green or red drives in those enclosures.

They mention the enclosures "Supports UASP function for even faster performance" over USB 3.0. Perhaps that has something to do with my issue? Is there something in the BIOS I could check that may affect USB recognizing external enclosures?

 

@river, I hate to say anything downbeat but I think you have just got an enclosure that doesn't work. I have a Iomega eGo USB3 drives which works perfectly fine with windows 7, Linux and macOS. They doesn't work with Windows 10 at all.

The reason is simple - in Windows 7 the USB drivers were written by Intel. In 8 and above they are written by Microsoft. In Windows 8 you could install the legacy Windows 7 Intel USB 3 drivers. In 10 you can't and some (not all) USB 3 drives don't work.

You have various options. Use another OS, connect through USB 2.

I just bought a different SATA-USB cable which worked fine for me.

 

Okay, this should complicate matters then.

I tried messing with the enclosures again this morning. I have no idea why, but they now work when plugged into my motherboard's built-in USB 3 ports. I've done nothing different from yesterday in that regard. I tried multiple times yesterday and those enclosures just would not get recognized by Windows. This morning they are immediately recognized - all 4 drives in each enclosure. Baffling.

They still did not work when plugged into my 4-port Renesas USB 3.0 PCI card. I then decided to try installing the latest Renesas driver from the website for the card. Now, according to multiple reviews on Newegg, this isn't necessary with Windows 10. Several reviews on Newegg said that Windows 10 recognized the card fine and no driver install was necessary. But I decided to try installing the driver anyways to see if that improved my situation. Nope, the enclosures still won't work when plugged into my card. But they do work now when plugged directly into my motherboard's USB 3 ports.

But,

- Before I installed the Renesas driver this morning, the enclosures were coming right up when plugged into my motherboard USB 3 ports. Now that the Renesas driver is installed, I get a fly-out balloon from Windows telling me the Mass Storage Device can reach better speeds by plugging the unit into a Superspeed 3.0 port. What? These enclosures are plugged into USB 3 ports! Usually you get this message when trying to plug a USB 3 device into a USB 2 port. I have no idea why I'm seeing this message since the enclosures are plugged into the USB 3 ports. That message only started to pop up after I installed the Renesas driver. Before that I got no message about the speeds.

- I Don't always get this warning about the speeds either - I just tried it again 3 times in a row - the first time I powered the enclosure up I got the speed warning. The next 2 times I powered up I didn't get that message. Very confused.

Also, I checked my Event Viewer to see if that could give me a clue. When I plug the enclosures into the motherboard USB 3 ports, there are no error messages. When I plug them into my USB card ports, I get these messages every time in the Event Viewer:

Disk 2 has the same disk identifiers as one or more disks connected to the system. Go to Microsoft's support website (http://support.microsoft.com) and search for KB2983588 to resolve the issue.

Disk 3 has the same disk identifiers as one or more disks connected to the system. Go to Microsoft's support website (http://support.microsoft.com) and search for KB2983588 to resolve the issue.

Disk 4 has the same disk identifiers as one or more disks connected to the system. Go to Microsoft's support website (http://support.microsoft.com) and search for KB2983588 to resolve the issue.

So it seems there is some kind of conflict maybe with multiple drives through the single USB 3 port on my Renesas card and Windows 10? But I was using this card all along with my old Windows 7 PC and I never had an issue with the card detecting all 4 drives at once in these enclosures.

So now for some mysterious reason the enclosures are working with my motherbpard USB 3 ports but not the Renesas card ports. And I get that message about the speeds when plugged into my motherboard ESB 3 ports. Any ideas based on this new information? Should I try to uninstall the Renesas driver and remove the "Renesas Electronics USB 3.0 Host Controller" and "Renesas Electronics USB Root Hub" from the device manager and let Windows re-detect them and install what it needs?

I also got one random power warning about a device plugged in via USB needing more power, but it disappeared so quickly I couldn't read all that it said. This was laso after I installed the Renesas driver. I know the Renesas driver has a power management feature that is enabled by default. I checked. This message came up when the enclosures weren't even turned on, so I have no idea what that was about. First time I've seen that message. As I said, the enclosures are AC powered.

 

Okay, I think I've got it narrowed down to the USB expansion card at this point. I think it's bad. I tried plugging my USB 3.0 thumb drive in the card and it doesn't get recognized. I's fine if I plug it directly into my motherboard ports. The card is powered by a 4-pin MOLEX plug so I checked the connections and the connector on the card is chipped and broken off. The end of the connector cord plug is also chipped and broken off. I don't know how long it's been that way - maybe it happened when I removed the card from my old PC a while back or maybe it's been that way for a while. I don't know but the card was working on my old PC. The plug can also fit into the card both ways now since the connector is broken which isn't good. I unplugged the MOLEX cable adapter plug and connected it a couple more times but I kept getting "Power surge on the USB port" alerts. At this point I don't feel comfortable with the card any longer. So I uninstalled the Renesas driver and removed the card.

Now all my Icy Dock enclosures are plugged directly into the motherboard USB 3 ports, and the enclosures all get recognized instantly. The only thing is I lost 4 USB 3.0 ports now since I'm tossing out the USB expansion card. I only have 6 USB 3 ports on my motherboard's rear plate so now I have no free ports left between the enclosures and my peripherals. I guess I need to figure out if I should buy another USB card or maybe just a cheap USB 3 hub for now.

 

that's great ,you solved the issue ,its always hard to troubleshoot from a distance on issues like this, you did a great job all on your own.. good luck

 

Thank you. Yeah, this was baffling to me. It's too bad I'm out a USB card but that's a whole lot better than multiple enclosures. I think I'll pick up a USB 3 hub for my peripherals to free up a couple more rear USB ports. Thanks again to everyone for trying to help.